Sony offered Call of Duty for 10 years as part of an Xbox deal

(Pocket-lint) – Microsoft has told Sony that it can have a guarantee that the Call of Duty franchise will remain on the PlayStation platform for the next ten years. Whether or not Call of Duty remains available to non-Xbox gamers is at the heart of arguments over whether Microsoft should be allowed to spend almost £69 billion on the company behind it – Activision Blizzard. There are more than a dozen governments yet to ratify the deal and although Xbox chief Phil Spencer has assured everyone that Call Of Duty won’t be made an Xbox exclusive, that hasn’t convinced people to date.

Now, a New York Times report says that Microsoft has put an offer on the table.

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“Microsoft said that on Nov.

11 it offered Sony a 10-year deal to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation”, the report notes before adding that “Sony declined to comment on the offer”. It isn’t just Sony that is worried about what might happen if the Microsoft buyout goes through, though. Regulators believe that there is a chance that Microsoft will hold all the cards when cloud-based gaming is the norm, no matter what assurances might be made today.

British regulators have said that Microsoft owning Activision-Blizzard would give it “an unparalleled advantage” over the competition. With only Saudi Arabia and Brazil having agreed to the buyout so far, plenty of questions are being asked here. And while Serbia is expected to follow suit, there’s no guarantee regulators from the U.K. and U.S. will do the same.

Writing by Oliver Haslam.